SoC Verification

What is SoC verification?

From consumer products such as earbuds to medical devices and advanced space technologies, SoCs touch every aspect of our lives. This incredible technology has combined the entire computing system into a single integrated circuit, optimizing in-board connectivity and providing miniaturization. Furthermore, they consume less power, can handle high compute, and offer the benefits of mobile computing.

With technological advancements and rising customer expectations, SoCs have become an integral component of highly complex electronic and computing devices. Therefore, verifying these complex SoC designs with efficient methodologies (reducing time and cost) becomes important before tapeout.

SoC verification tests system design and functionality, ensuring that specifications and features are correctly implemented. On average, the verification phase consumes more than 70% of the SoC development cycle, giving SoC verification a vital role in the design and development process.

Why is SoC Verification important?

Recent reports indicate that the SoC market should experience a (compound annual growth rate) of 8.55%, and by 2029, it will reach $544.7 million . Therefore, the competition for advanced and more competent SoC products will peak in the future. Staying ahead of the competition in the semiconductor industry involves two significant challenges of time and cost. Only functionally efficient designs will sustain the market, as the performance characteristics are the essential determinants.

The SoC design and development process consumes significant effort and time. It is also quite expensive. Testing at the full-chip level also requires extensive resources and time, which increases the products’ manufacturing cost and market time . Usually, the two key metrics that matter are turnaround time (TAT) and power, performance, and area (PPA). While both are critical for chip design success, achieving optimal PPA at TAT targets is often difficult without making any tradeoffs.

It is always beneficial to detect bugs early in the design cycle, as it is costly to catch these in later stages. Verifying chip-level functionality can reduce verification time and identify glitches in the design that would have led to costly errors. Therefore, opting for an alternative, smarter, and cost-effective SoC verification strategy is essential, as last-stage testing is not a suitable option.

Also, the SoC architecture comprises different functional units such as embedded processors, image processors, CPU, on-chip and off-chip memory units, bus fabric, and more. With such complex designs, quality assurance is critical. The safety and security aspects, performance, and power targets are important criteria that cannot be neglected at any cost. Therefore, there is now a significant increase in SoC verification efforts.

How does SoC Verification work?

Effective SoC verification management includes the following phases:

Planning – It is essential to design an executable verification plan to assess different functionalities properly. Correlation between the features and tests is not necessary; in fact, the coverage targets should be prioritized.
Execution – Here, the focus is to reach all the coverage targets per the plan by running numerous tests on multiple engines and minimizing the turnaround time (TAT) for each regression test. There will be several regression re-runs with bug fixing and added functionalities. Therefore, initiating, managing, and monitoring the job progress for all verification engines is essential.
Analysis – The analysis phase starts right after the execution phase. The team should aggregate the passing test coverage results and debug the failing tests. Deep analysis with optimal resource utilization can help improve coverage metrics and save time by identifying unreachable targets.
Closure – After eliminating the coverage targets, it is time to act on the remaining reachable targets. All the tests require closure, and a what-if analysis will adequately justify the closure. However, it is not possible to achieve full coverage for all tests. Therefore, for practical results, the goal is typically to get above 95% to keep the undetected bugs at a minimum.

SoC Verification with Cadence

For industry-leading verification solutions, Cadence offers fast, scalable engines and smart applications for flexible computing and efficient bug fixing.

Cadence has been a pivotal leader in the electronics market and delivers unique solutions with its computational software expertise and experience. These solutions are based on the latest technologies and deliver unmatched verification throughput to address the verification requirements for multiple segments. Cadence offers top verification strategies such as:

Formal and static verification – Based on smart proof technology, this form provides advanced design scalability for efficient bug fixing within lesser time and without any testbench. This is the exhaustive form of verification that requires no testbench, saves months of verification effort, and finds more bugs at an earlier stage of the design
Simulation – The Cadence Xcelium Logic Simulator offers best-in-class core engine performance with automated parallel and incremental build technologies for the highest verification performance. It is an industry-leading simulation tool for best verification throughput, leveraging single-core and multi-core simulation technology for best individual test performance and machine learning-optimized regression technology for best regression throughput.
Portable Stimulus – Cadence Perspec System Verifier automates the development of complex system-level coverage-driven tests to verify your SoC. Compared to manual test development, you’ll be able to generate 10X more tests 10X faster using the Perspec System Verifier. In addition, with its integrated debugging capability, you’ll be equipped to reproduce, find, and fix complex SoC-level bugs in order to improve the overall quality of your SoC.
Functional Safety – Safety compliance for digital and analog/mixed-signal that is fully integrated with Cadence design and verification flows, offering improved productivity, and accelerating safety compliance
AI-Driven Verification – Cadence offers a suite of applications leveraging big data and AI to optimize verification productivity and efficiency.
Verification IP (VIP) – Shorten simulation run time with VIP and memory models optimized for the IP, SoC, and system-level testing required for designs
System VIP – Bringing verification automation to the SoC and enabling up to 10X gain in chip-level verification efficiency over existing technologies.
Planning and management – Cadence Verisium Manager offers automated verification planning and management solutions that can further productivity by optimizing resource implementation.
Emulation and prototyping – Cadence provides the most comprehensive solution for IP and SoC verification, hardware and software regressions, and early software development
Debug analysis – Cadence offers sophisticated solutions for SoC verification debug and automation needs. It can improve debug productivity by up to 50%.
Virtual and Hybrid Platform – Helium Virtual and Hybrid Solution from Cadence enable early pre-silicon software bring-up and concurrent hardware/software co-verification.